Nazarenko ReThinkingValueLinguistic 2003

Re-Thinking the Value of the Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Sign: Russian Visual Poetry
without Verbal Components

Author(s): Tatiana Nazarenko
Source: The Slavic and East European Journal , Autumn, 2003, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Autumn,
2003), pp. 393-422
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3219979
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RE-THINKING THE VALUE OF THE LINGUISTIC
AND NON-LINGUISTIC SIGN: RUSSIAN VISUAL
POETRY WITHOUT VERBAL COMPONENTS
Tatiana Nazarenko, University of Manitoba
Alongside the huge corpus of traditional poetry there exists a substantial

body of visual or pattern poetry which is recognizable by its non-orthodox
iconic dimensions and is typically identified as "poetry meant to be seen"
(Bohn 1986, 2). Although often recognized as a fairly modern phenomenon,
visual poetry, at least its European variant, has a considerably lengthier
history than is generally perceived. It stretches from the Greek technopagnia
[art or technique of games] of the sixth century B.C. to the most recent
experimentation in concrete poetry. As Dick Higgins (5-17) claims, visual
poetry demonstrates a universal tendency to synthesize visual and literary
experiences, and consequently can be traced in many world cultures.
It is generally agreed that Eastern European visual writing originated in
the eleventh century' and established itself as carmina curiosa under the
strong influence of seventeenth-century European Baroque culture. In Rus-
sia, the inception and evolution of this genre is typically associated with the
legacy of the court poet Simeon Polotsky2 (1629-1680), a Belorussian by
origin who was educated in Kiev3 and possibly also in Vilnius. Polotsky
introduced many genres of carmina curiosa into Russian culture. However,
scholars are not unanimous in their evaluation of Polotsky's influence on
Russian poetry. Many Western scholars argue that Polotsky's visual experi-
mentation was "a purely imported product without a native Russian source"
(Janecek 1984, 8), which never enjoyed wide circulation4 and had minimal
impact (Hippisley 2). Russian scholars usually assess Polotsky's influence on
their national literature as being greater than most Western Slavists do.
Some even claim that Polotsky left behind him a poetic school which was well
integrated into Russian culture (Sazonova 16) using the examples of Silvestr
Medvedev (1641-1691) and Karion Istomin (1650(?)-1717 or 1722).5 Only a
few scholars in Russia express scepticism regarding the existence of a
Polotsky tradition in Russian literature.6
Baroque achievements were not completely lost to the following genera-
SEEJ, Vol. 47, No. 3 (2003): p. 393-p. 421 393

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394 Slavic and East European Journal
tions of writers.7 However, the isolated compositions scattered throughout

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the few from the nineteenth
century,8 did not form a national tradition.
Visual writing reappeared at the beginning of the twentieth century and
had a boom on the Russian literary scene in the wild experimentation of
Russian avant-garde writers, led primarily by the adherents of Futurism
and Constructivism. The avant-gardists desired to create a mega-language
that reflected the modern technological and industrial era.9 This, in turn,
stimulated linguistic experiments such as the invention of zaum [trans-
rational language] and utilization of minimalistic texts freed from the limita-
tions of grammar and syntax. The avant-gardists also strove toward synthe-
sizing verbal with non-verbal media, such as painting, graphics, film,
theater, and photography, as supplementary means of elucidating or ampli-
fying the verbal message. In contrast to medieval poets who borrowed
neutral and impersonal forms from a rather limited common repertoire of
shapes (Cook 12), avant-gardists created forms which reflected their indi-
vidualized perceptions and their social milieu for further synthesis with a
verbal medium.
Avant-gardists indulged not only in irrepressible linguistic and visual
experimentations,10 their theoretical works on new poetic means constitute
a substantial area of critical inquiry as well.'1 In the first third of the
century, experimental writers and poets, unlike those who followed in their
footsteps during the last decades of the twentieth century, received substan-
tial scholarly support. Their experimentations provided theorists of two
influential schools, the Moscow Linguistic Circle and the St. Petersburg
Society for the Study of Poetic Language, with ample material for their
scholarly inquiries. Russian Formalists predominantly focused on linguistic
issues rather than the more complex problems of the visual arts12 or the
mixed forms which conjoined literary and visual strategies, and yet their
works provided a foundation for visual literature analysis as well.13 How-
ever, the most radical ideas about visual poetics were expressed by the
Constructivist Aleksei Nikolaevich Chicherin. In his 1926 theoretical work
Kan-Fun (a contraction of Constructivism-Functionalism), Chicherin advo-
cates a non-discursive poetic mode governed by "wordless material, which
comes under the fundamental law of Constructivism" (8). For Chicherin,
poems devoid of verbal components do not lie outside the bounds of po-
etry. They simply use other means of expressiveness instead of linguistic
units, to wit, "a sign of pictorial presentation, called a pictogram, and an
image in an object" (10), which "in the minimal space loads the smallest
unit of the organized material with the maximum meaning" (8). Chicherin,
in contrast to the Futurists Kruchenykh and Khlebnikov, did not attempt to
link sounds or sound sensations to semantically "indefinite" and "indetermi-
nate" words. He understood his task as the construction of a sign system,

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Re-Thinking the Value of the Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Sign 395
which could use any material for absorbing the required compact load and
for appearing meaningful at the shortest glance. Such material includes all
available signs: mathematical, astronomic and typographical symbols, geo-
metric figures, musical notations, all types of emblems, punctuation marks,
ornamental elements, floral, faunal and other drawings, seals, stamps,
trademarks, and other non-verbal signs (12). As a practitioner, Chicherin
produced several non-verbal14 poems resembling geometrical abstractions
(fig. 1).
By suggesting that various material objects should literally replace arbi-
trary and abstract linguistic signs in the poetic discourse, Chicherin pushed
the concept of reification of literature to the utter extreme, thirty years
before the Noigandres group of concrete poets from Brazil (Augusto de
Campos, Haroldo de Campos, and Decio Pignatari) articulated their funda-
mental conviction that the poem "is an object in and by itself" (Campos
258). Chicherin suggested a number of highly innovative ideas and tech-
niques, which at that time were considered too radical and thus "were not
regarded with esteem by his fellow Constructivists" or other avant-gardists
(Weber 296). Later, Chicherin's ideas were developed by Russian "trans-
poets" of the 1970-80s (Rea Nikonova,15 Sergei Sigei16 and Boris Konstrik-
tor17). In the 1930s, however, the experimentations of Soviet avant-gardists
were brutally disrupted by Stalinist cultural policy.
The tradition of visual poetry languidly continued through the gloomy
years of Socialist Realist domination (see Biriukov), and the occasionally
Fig. 1

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created pieces of visual literature in most cases were not published. During
the totalitarian period the official critical response to experimental litera-
ture was to condemn it regardless of when it was created and by whom.
Visual poetry's revival occurred during the Khrushchev thaw in the
1960s. Khrushchev's campaign of modernization and de-Stalinization, fol-
lowing decades of repression, initiated a period of relaxation and liberaliza-
tion. The long-awaited greater freedom of expression became a strong
impetus for writers and visual artists to experiment. New literary and artis-
tic works, deviating from Socialist Realist stereotypes, were published and
exhibited. As a wide range of foreign publications and exhibitions became
available, the Soviet public received an opportunity to become acquainted
with the latest Western developments. Michael Scammell notes: "The pro-
fusion of styles, the vitality of imagination, and variety of experimentation,
and the sheer freedom and exuberance of Western artists was overwhelm-
ing to the Soviet artists" (50). It also encouraged them to experiment
zealously. As Sergei Sigei expressed it: "Everyone creates his own version
of Western culture" (Nikonova-Tarshis 236). However, it would be errone-
ous to connect Russian poets' and visual artists' innovative ideas and tech-
niques exclusively to Western influence, as many of them emerged indepen-
dent of foreign influences. As much as by awareness of Western culture,
this interest in visual poetry was also stimulated by the rediscovery of the
Russian avant-gardists. In this cultural context, the revival of visual poetry,
which "lies at the center of the poetic experience" (Bohn 1986, 4), was
natural. Interestingly, Gorbachev's glasnost, another period of liberaliza-
tion following Brezhnev's stagnation and cultural suffocation, allowed a
younger generation of Russian visualists (Dmitry Bulatov, Olga Dmitrieva,
Dmitry Babenko, Ignat Filippov, Willy Melnikov, Aleksandr Surikov and
others) to emerge.
Needless to say, even in the most liberal Soviet years essentially non-
conformist visual poetry belonged to an underground, alternative culture.
Russian visualists' striving for freedom of expression and experimentation
did not need to be officially suppressed by the totalitarian system because it
was already impossible to promote visual poetry in official publications and
art galleries. Critical response to 1960-70s visual poetry was minimal, with
most criticism being written by the practitioners themselves. Thus, the
diverse activity of the Sverdlovsk "Uktus School" (1965-1974), whose rep-
resentatives contributed appreciably to visual poetry as well as to Concep-
tualism,18 remained largely unnoticed by both Russian scholars and the
Russian public'9 (Nikonova-Tarshis 222). The cultural legacy of the Uktus
School has yet to be researched and publicized. Undoubtedly, contempo-
rary Russian visual poetry is considerably indebted, both conceptually and
artistically, to Rea Nikonova, Sergei Sigei, Valery Diachenko, Feliks Volo-
senkov, Evgeny Arbenyov, Viktor Kikin and other "Uktus School" repre-

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sentatives. In addition to numerous visual compositions using truly innova-

tive techniques and diverse styles, the Uktus School practitioners produced
critical pieces on various aspects of experimental and visual poetry, the
majority of which were published alongside visual poems in samizdat or
marginal literary journals and brochures with limited circulation. In the
1980s the core of the Uktus School continued their literary activity as
"trans-poets" and became major contributors to the handmade journal
Transponans. They authored numerous handmade books and participated
in national and international artistic projects and performances, as well as
continuing their scholarly activity.
Although the members of the Uktus School and "trans-poets" were the
most original and prolific Russian visualists of the second part of the twenti-
eth century, other practitioners, many of whom had established themselves
in other genres of literary or artistic activity, contributed to visual poetry's
development. Anna Alchuk, Genrikh Sapgir, Vilen Barsky,20 Valeri Scherst-
janoi,21 Sergei Biriukov,22 and others account for the fact that in the last
decades of the twentieth century Russian visual poetry has thrived as never
before. In recent years Russian visualist works, whether created in the So-
viet or post-Soviet period, are becoming accessible to readers through instal-
lations in museums of modern art, through limited-run publications, and at
various national and international exhibitions of visual poetry and experi-
mental art.
Contemporary Russian visual poetry is represented by a variety of sub-
genres and forms. Ranging from minimalistic or non-verbal pieces, to
complex compositions demonstrating sophisticated experimentation on
both a pictorial and semantic level, these works express different view-
points and often provide aesthetically challenging and highly critical artis-
tic responses to the realities of both Soviet and post-Soviet existence.
Although it may be argued that visual poems do not belong to mainstream
literature, it is obvious that potentially they can reach a wide international
audience without being translated into even the most common languages
of international communication.
From its inception, visual poetry was perceived as highly experimental.
Since it conjoins literary and visual strategies, it presents a synthesis of the
principles fundamental for each medium. The dual nature of visual poetry
envisages that experimentation within the framework of the genre may be
undertaken in both linguistic and pictorial media. In the twentieth century
various avant-garde movements and schools (Formalism, Constructivism,
Concretism, Lettrism, Neoconcretism, and others) resorted to this form,
thus broadening and diversifying the scope of pictorial and linguistic experi-
mentation. It is through the works and theories of various twentieth-
century schools and individual practitioners that the concept of the page as
visual statement organized according to the dictates of visual syntax has

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significantly evolved. Additionally, technological capacities stimulate virtu-

ally unlimited manipulation and experimentation within the domain of
visual poetics. Nevertheless, however radical these experiments might be,
experimentation with textuality by many visual practitioners has not been
any less drastic. And here some crucial issues arise related to the poetic
representation and generic repertoire of visual poetry.
It is generally felt that poetry is a verbal art. Therefore, any individual
poem is "an instance of verbal art, a text" (Brogan 938), that is, a piece of
spoken or written language realized through linguistic signs: phonemes,
words, phrases, sentences or larger units. A text may be of considerable
length or it may consist of just one word, but the presence of this word is
crucial for the poetic instance to be understood as a text, "a language unit
which has a definable communicative function, characterised by such princi-
ples as cohesion, coherence and informativeness" (Crystal 307), and not as
a work of visual art, despite the fact that we perceive the written text
visually.
Whenever we deal with the poem, whether a traditional or a visual one,
the assumption is that the poem should have at least some text. With visual
or concrete poetry, the text is minimal in most cases. Nonetheless, pictorial
elements provide visual clues for deciphering the text, as, for instance, in
Rea Nikonova's "Slova [Words]" (1992a) (fig. 2). Individual letters ar-
ranged on a pedestal and forming an isosceles triangle are meant to be read
in a zigzag manner. Determinant sequences of reading are indicated by
vector arrows, following which we can obtain the word "slova." The hierar-
chy of letters established on the visual level suggests an equilibrium. None-
theless, on further examination this equilibrium turns out to be a fragile
one, with implied inner motion or action enhanced by "competition be-
tween the vacuum (absence of the text) and the text" (Nikonova 1992a, 1).
Fig. 2

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Fig. 3
Cl
According to the author, the manner of reading reflects the process of

overcoming the vacuum within the framework of the word as such (Niko-
nova 1992b, 1). However, in Nikonova's composition the fundamental
concept of utilizing visual elements in order to "reinforce, extend, inflect,
or subvert conventional linguistic meaning which becomes the basis of
many works" (Drucker 122) is not challenged.
In another work by Nikonova, "Vokrug solntsa B [Around the sun B]"
(1992a) (Fig. 3), the layout suggests the way it should be read. The vectors or
arrows identify the sequence of reading and comprehension. The minimal-
istic component is restricted to paired consonants, with the letter "b" being
utilized most frequently. Linguistically, the graphemes signify sounds associ-
ated with the given letters. Nikonova (1992a, 1) believes that these non-
verbal signs may symbolize the binomial quantum, suggesting an affinity
with computer binary code. Therefore, at least partially, these graphemes
serve as pictorial devices which relate casually (but not arbitrarily or conven-
tionally) to the things they indicate. However, in either function, individual
letters are not logically connected to a specific textual meaning. Conse-
quently, the message has to be seen as the binary code itself.
Those familiar with concrete or visual poetry know that many cultures
have a corpus of visual poems that do not contain any text. Some of them
may be comprised of individual letters but are not texts as such. Others rely
on non-linguistic signs, symbols, indices, pictograms or purely graphic ele-
ments. Nevertheless, non-verbal visual compositions are typically identi-
fied as visual poems (that is, works belonging to literature) and not as
pieces of non-representational art. Thus, a logical question arises regarding
the legitimacy of this taxonomic decision. Why are non-verbal works de-

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fined as poetry? And if this definition can be somehow justified, what are
the criteria? What components of a visual poem assume the responsibility
for transmitting a cohesive, coherent and informative message in the ab-
sence of text? What impact does this situation have on the function of the
linguistic signs in the work?
Some scholars argue that most avant-garde concrete poetry "lies outside
the bounds of the figured poem" (Ernst 11) and, therefore, of literature.
They claim that this is true "not only for the purely phonetic products of
sound poetry, which pose no problem here, but also for pictorial texts which
step over the boundary into graphic art" (Ernst 11). However, this position is
often questioned by many researchers on visual poetry, as well as by many
visual poetry practitioners. Many of them suggest that visual poems are
conceived - and thus function - simultaneously as literary works and as
works of art (Bohn 2001, 15).
At this point it would be relevant to look more closely at Rea Nikonova's
concept of so-called "vacuum poetry," as this concept is crucial for under-
standing visual poets' experimentation with spaciality and textuality. The
principles of this concept were formulated in Nikonova's works "Literatura
i vakuum [Literature and Vacuum]" (1983), "Slovo lishnee kak takovoe [A
Word Redundant As Such]" (1991) and "Vektor vakuuma [Vacuum Vec-
tor]" (1992).
By literary vacuum Nikonova means pauses or discourse-free space that
encourage the author to replace the absent text with pictorial, musical,
even rhythmical patterns, which in the absence of a text acquire universal
meaning. Thus, a visual poem composed of proto-calligraphic elements can
be identified as a musical piece or a pictorial composition or even a scien-
tific diagram (Nikonova 1992b, 15). Conventional literary texts separate
the phonetic and the visual aspects of a work that in the case of visual
poetry is meant primarily for visual perception. Unlike conventional po-
etry, visual poetry conveys the poetic message through both verbal and
pictorial means. Therefore, the genre requirements of the form presuppose
that at least part of the poetic message is to be communicated by non-
linguistic signs. Since there are no rules or restrictions regarding the
amount of message to be transmitted verbally, the linguistic component can
be reduced significantly, to the point of its complete absence. But if the
message can be successfully communicated by non-verbal means, the inte-
grality of the textual component is not clear. Conversely, the literary text
can be an abundant element, which distracts attention from the perception
of significant extra-linguistic constituents of the work, such as its color,
page alignment, odor, tactile sensation, etc. Words are not indispensable
for reflecting reality, and thus can be omitted, if the poet so chooses.
It is not difficult to notice that, as far as the treatment of the verbal
message is concerned, Nikonova's concept is unmistakably linked to Chi-

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cherin's principle of "wordless" poetry. In fact, it can be viewed as a logical

continuation of the Russian Constructivist's ideas. Chicherin was the first
to express a deep mistrust of verbal means as adequate poetic material: "A
word is a disease, an ulcer, a cancer, which wrecked and is still wrecking the
Poet and drawing Poetry to its destruction and decay" (9). Nikonova's
treatment of the verbal message reveals the same skepticism towards con-
ventional poetic language: "No poet's verses sustain the need for the con-
stant adoration of the word, and therefore, in my recent poetry (from 1982)
I dispense with words" (Nikonova 1993, 250).
However, in her theorizing Nikonova proceeds even further, as she
clearly accepts the possibility for excluding from the poetic orbit any means
of expression which is not immanent for the texture of the page itself as a
platform (1992b, 12). For Nikonova, the page need not necessarily be
covered with printed, written or drawn signs in order that it be perceived or
read as a visual poem (1993, 250). The notion of the blank page is an
extreme case of vacuum poetry to which most visual poets never resort in
their practice. However, the idea of the platform as a conveyer of the
message is not devoid of reason. As Nikonova argues, the meaning of the
work can depend not exclusively on letters or their substitutes and their
arrangement on the page, but also on the platform and its characteristics:
A page platform is not just a fixed support for the text, but is also a literary fact, just like a
house is a human dwelling and not only an element of the landscape. If the content of the
book encompasses its platform's potential [...], then this type of vacuum space is far from
barren. Additionally, the page platform can have a phonetic meaning (clinking, rustling) or a
tactile one. (1992b, 12)
Needless to say, Nikonova's critical inquiry into platform diversification

and its potential can be extremely useful for researchers of handmade or
artists' books, whether dealing with the first Futurists' experimentation or
the most recent installation projects. However, the idea of the platform as
an active and interactive means of poetic communication whose properties
and attributes should be taken into consideration is crucial for understand-
ing vacuum and visual poetry as a whole. The platform is a meeting place
for various creative means and experimental techniques. In the case of
vacuum poetry, it is a primary means of poetic expression as well. Relying
on the platform (and not on the text), vacuum poetry establishes kinship
with other arts and sciences (Nikonova 1992b, 13), and this particular
feature makes it a contemporary and interdisciplinary phenomenon (Niko-
nova 1993, 250).
Radical as it may seem, Nikonova's idea of a "totally liberated" plat-
form is quite in line with Russian poetic experience, and not necessarily
only the most recent. The first poem that can be identified as an extreme
case of the vacuum poetry concept was created in 1913 by St. Petersburg

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Ego-Futurist Vasilisk Gnedov. It was entitled "Poema kontsa [The Poem

of the End]." Besides the title, Gnedov's poem does not have a single
word, as it presents an empty white space, a permanent pause, a realized
vacuum platform. In 1914 Kornei Chukovsky, the noted Russian critic,
provided the following comment on Gnedov's radical creative endeavor
and those of other Futurists:
They scattered all culture into dust, all the extraneous features of the centuries, and they
rebelled to the limit leading to nothing, to the whole, to emptiness, to the nil, till the final and
absolute nihil, to the famous poem without a single line by the famous Vasilisk Gnedov: a
snow-white sheet of paper without any word written! This is the final liberation indeed, the
final denudation of the soul. (38)
Chukovsky's negative criticism was apparently provoked by Gnedov's

categorical refusal to use the conventional poetic medium that is language.
Based on this, Chukovsky claimed that this experimental poem was devoid
of any meaning. Obviously, Gnedov's poem was an epatage, an undisguised
rebellion against conventionalism and dull rationality. But so was the Futur-
ists' creative output as a whole (although their experimentation was not
necessarily pushed to the radical edge), and Chukovsky wrote extensively
on this and in most cases quite favorably. For Gnedov himself, however, his
poem was quite meaningful as well as emotionally charged. As V. Piast
recollects, the poet liked to perform this composition by making an ener-
getic gesture of his hand up to his head and then abruptly down and to the
right (cit. in Kuzminskii, lanechek, and Ocheretianskii 16). The perform-
ing mode of the poem transposed a literary piece from the traditional two-
dimensional sphere to three-dimensional space (Nikonova 1993, 248), thus
making it more expressive and volumetric. Interestingly, Nikonova often
resorts to the same techniques in performing her "vector" and "gesture"
poems,23 many of which technically fall into the category of vacuum poems.
As Nikonova suggests, in creating his vacuum poem Gnedov epitomizes
the idea that literature is closely connected to its own absence. But vac-
uum, as she insists, is characterized by freedom, and not by emptiness. By
freedom she apparently understands both the liberation from linguistic
hegemony, and the possibility of exploring diverse devices, means, and
techniques. It also implies a freedom for the reader to provide multiple
readings and interpretations for vacuum poetry (Nikonova 1992b, 15). Mes-
sage interpretability may vary considerably from one piece to another.
However, as it will be demonstrated further, vacuum poems are not always
resistant to interpretation.
Between these two poles, Chicherin's and Nikonova's mistrust of verbal
means of poetic expressions and Gnedov's negation of any means but the
vacuum itself, there exists a substantial body of non-verbal and yet poetic
works, although the majority of the authors do not refer to their produc-

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Fig. 4
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tions as vacuum poetry and may not be familiar with Chicherin'

Nikonova's theorizing.
Anna Alchuk's composition "Prosteishie [The Simplest]" (Alchuk
is reminiscent of abstract art, although the minimal structural un
ployed by the author are graphemes and punctuation marks, geom
organized in rectangles (fig. 4). They are simple indeed, as each c
tion utilizes only one sign, arranged in a regular pattern.
Unlike Alchuk's composition, Genrikh Sapgir's poems from the
"Stikhi iz trekh elementov [Three-Element Verses]" at a non-verb
transmit both communicative and emotive messages codified by in
punctuation marks and their combinations. If the visual poem "V
[Question]" (249) can be regarded as a literal visualization of the n
itself, its conjoined poem entitled "Otvet [Answer]" (figs. 5-6) pa
the form and the content of the hypothetical answer: "kakov vopr
i otvet [like question, like answer]," as a Russian saying reads. The
sition "Podtekst [Subtext]" (249) (fig. 7) obviously alludes to th
spread Soviet practice of communicating messages in an Aesopian
for those who can read between lines, a skill well developed b
Soviet citizens. "Marsh [March]" (250) (fig. 8) visually communica
sonoric qualities of music designed to promote orderly marching,
monophony, simplicity of tune, stability of general rhythm, and

151.15.162.189 on Sun, 03 Dec 2023 11:59:27 +00:00
Figs. 5-6
?????
? 17 I? !?
1?? 1?? I?? I1??
??? ??? ??? ???
Fig. 7
...!
/ . ........................?/
...?
/ ......................... /
eee ee....eeeeeeeee
............. ?. /
The composition's ending with a question m

gests an ironic connotation.
Devoid of verbal elements, Alchuk's and Sa
tions are nonetheless semantically clear and
hendible, and the structural simplicity and sem
the works do not require any elaborate dec
Sergei Sigei's "Comma poem" (fig. 9) exem

151.15.162.189 on Sun, 03 Dec 2023 11:59:27 +00:00
instance of vacuum poetry. The work is organized on a formal analogy with

poetic discourse and consists of seven lines which are not uniform in the
number of metric feet as far as the visualized rhythmical pattern is con-
cerned. The margins are justified on both sides, giving a dramatic treat-
ment to the poem's design and contrasting with orthodox poetic discourse,
which is justified only on the left side. At the same time, each line begins
with a sign identical in shape and color, suggesting the consistent usage of
anaphora throughout the poem. Further analysis permits us to notice the
epiphoric endings of the first four lines. The principal structural unit of the
poem is a stylized comma depicted in the original in three colors, pink (for
the bottommost layer of each), green and ultramarine, while the partial
overlapping of imprints also creates supplementary shades and tinges. The
implication of the comma as a minimal unit creates an internal conflict in
the discourse. On the one hand, this sign can be regarded as a visual symbol
of a metrical segment, a foot, in a verse hierarchy. On the other hand, a
comma indicates a pause, interval, or vacuum. Thus, the poem can be
interpreted as a poetic work with some immanently implied meaning resis-

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tant to reading and decoding, as well as being a vacuum poem. Being

utterly unpronounceable, Sigei's poem exists only in its visual representa-
tion, and therefore its dimensions, color scheme, spatial dynamics, and
other visual elements acquire meaning, thus clearly illustrating the for-
mula, to which all definitions of visual poetry may be reduced: "form =
content, content = form" (Solt 13). In this sense, Sigei's vacuum cotnposi-
tion does produce meaning, however hypothetical and arbitrary it may be.
In fact, even without clear referents, the composition suggests multiple
readings. Thus, the initial arrangement of structural units, their ongoing
regrouping, and the final supplanting of blue (i.e. the darkest in b/w) units
by an unbroken succession of (the lighter) pink and green ones can be
dramatically interpreted even through the traditional left-to-right linear
approach to discourse, to say nothing about other ways of ingress which are
implicitly present in the structure itself, such as diagonal or zigzag. From a
linguistic point of view none of this message is verbal. Yet altogether it
communicates a cohesive and somewhat coherent message, which is infor-
mative as well.
It is clear that the question of semantics acquires a special status in non-
verbal compositions. A closer look at Dmitry Bulatov's untitled composi-
tion (one in a series; see fig. 10, unpublished author's copy), which is
Fig. 10
R
R
.p
n
TW1

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seemingly deprived of any meaningful verbal discourse and yet utilizes

individual letters as basic structural units, may highlight the creative princi-
ples behind works of this type, and, probably, behind vacuum poetry in
general. In the work of this Kaliningrad-based author, the repetitive verti-
cal sequence of the Latin grapheme "R" is formed by visual signs which
cannot be identified as linguistic signs, inasmuch as they do not produce a
text or even a word. Compositions lacking a textual component in accor-
dance with Nikonova's definition belong to the corpus of vacuum works, to
which conventional methods of semantic analysis cannot be applied. There-
fore, the chain of visual signs may be identified with vocal clues. Gradual
truncation of the letter "R" to the point of its total physical disappearance
can be interpreted as a lowering of the voice and a sinking into silence or
total verbal vacuum, the latter symbolized by empty bar lines. These levels
of hypothetical meaning are not supported by a textual component, which
usually provides a more accurate expression of the message.
If a textual component is missing, as occurs in Bulatov's composition,
does this inevitably indicate the absence of semantic value? Is it tanta-
mount to saying that in works without a lexical component the meaning is
indiscernible, that Lettristic compositions are purely ornamental structures
completely deprived of textual meaning? Since many theoretical aspects of
vacuum or non-verbal visual poetry have not been developed (or even
addressed yet), there is no clear answer to many of these questions. How-
ever, some suppositions may be helpful for understanding the mechanism
for comprehending this type of literary communication. It is true that
Bulatov's work does not contain a textual element. But it is possible to view
the grapheme "R" as both a visual sign and as an abbreviation, character-
ized by Derrida (1976, 28) as writing which reduces the dimensions of its
presence to a sign. Thus, it is not difficult to realize that the abbreviation
"R" may stand for a variety of meaningful notions, each possessing a
textual meaning. However, because the textual semantics of the work are
not clearly determined by the existing abbreviation, multiple readings link-
ing this abbreviation, for example, to the theory of music (suggested by bar
lines in the work structure) can be suggested. Another possible reference is
the responsorium (hence the choice of the letter R) in antiphonal Grego-
rian chant.
The principles of text reduction and elimination are realized most radi-
cally in Nikonova's own vacuum poems (fig. 11). Works of this type consist
of vectors of reading and structural frames with words missing, and thus
provide exterior schemes used to organize literary material without any
content. In the poet's opinion, the absence of the verbal text in her vacuum
work does not significantly influence their essence. As she argues, her
compositions can be compared to apartments without tenants, whose pres-
ence or absence does not influence the attractiveness of the places them-

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selves (1992a: 1). Optically composed works cannot be read aloud; they are
meant, however, to be decoded and interpreted conceptually. The codes
which regulate the interaction of the reader with the message can be less
lucid than they are for reading based on established conventions of verbal
text perception. Nonetheless, the reader's activity should be controlled at
least partially by the discourse in order for the interaction to be successful.
For this reason Nikonova incorporates her vectors, structural frames, and
pictograms, while Chicherin relies on pictograms and non-linguistic indica-
tors and symbols. Unlike works of fine art, non-verbal pieces of visual
poetry appeal more to our intellectual capacities than to our purely aes-
thetic perception. Nevertheless, in many cases the border between non-
verbal visual pieces and abstract graphics or painting is clear.
Sigei's "picto-poem" (1990b, 95) based on Velimir Khlebnikov's verse
"Krylyshkuia zolotopismom"24 (the title may be rendered as "Winging by
Writing in Gold," fig. 12) presents an example of the complex and unique
relationship between the literary text and its pictographic variant. Sigei's
work is obviously difficult to interpret for readers unfamiliar with its liter-
ary background. However, the meaning of the original poem is not entirely
clear either.
The study of Khlebnikov's transrational language or zaum, which has
received scholarly attention,25 is beyond the limits of the present work.
However, some brief comments essential for understanding Sigei's transpos-
ing technique are relevant to the present discussion. Khlebnikov's inten-
tion regarding zaum was the creation of a more efficient, more functional,
more precise and more expressive language than the standard Russian
language in use. In his essays of 1915-1921, Khlebnikov attempted to lay
down some logical principles "by which zaum may be turned into an inter-
pretable language" (Janecek 1996, 140). Although Khlebnikov did not com-
plete his task of creating a universal language, his theoretical writings on
this subject assist one in understanding his works written in zaum.
Khlebnikov's poem "Krylyshkuia zolotopis'mom" reads as follows:

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Krylyshkuia zolotopis'mom Winging by writing in gold

Tonchaishikh zhil Of the thinnest veins
Kuznechik v kuzov puza ulozhil The grasshopper put inside his belly
Pribrezhnykh mnogo trav i ver Lots of riverside herbs and faiths
Pin', pin', pin'! tararakhnul zinziver Pin, pin, pin! the zinziver rurumbled
O lebedivo! Oh swanlike miracle!
O ozari! (1968, 301) Oh illuminate! (my translation)
As we see, the text of the short poem incorporates a few zaum

each having a different degree of interpretability. Thus, the sty
refined and metaphorically lucid phrase krylyshkuia zolotopis'mo
an exquisite transparent image which does not require explanat
noun zinziver with the personifying suffix -er most likely stan
animate creature that is capable of emitting reverberating soun
pin', pin'! tararakhnul zinziver). According to D. Burliuk, zin
colloquial name for a small bird that lives near waterways (Khl
1968, 303). However, Russian etymological dictionaries record th
being the name for the mallow plant,26 which grows near river
medicinal properties (Vermeulen 180-81). And yet Burliuk's supp
better connected with the meaning of the word zinziver as use
poem, inasmuch as it is supported by Khlebnikov's own theorizin
correlation between the auditory image of the word and its sem
elaborated in his essays "Z and Its Environs" [1915] and "A Chec
Alphabet of the Mind" [1916]. According to Khlebnikov (198
305), words beginning with the letter "z" signify either the resonant
tion of distant strings or reflecting surfaces and reflected rays, incl
reflection of sound: "zvon [bell], zyk [loud cry], zuk [a cry or sou
zvuk [sound] -these are a series of acoustic reflections" (304-
spondingly, "the call of the cuckoo consists of two syllables: the
them is a muffled reflection of the first, whence other names f
cuckoo: zegzitsa, zozulia" (395). The word zinziver can be include
same semantic group. The intent of onomatopoetic words like p
tararakhnut' is not particularly translucent, mostly due to their
poor semantic congruity within the framework of the same phr
much as pin', pin', pin' clearly indicates a high-pitched soft sou
tararakhnut' suggests noisy rumbling.
The meaning of the final word vera (used in the plural form
semantically vague fourth line is indistinct. Vera means "faith."
as an abstract noun, it cannot refer to any material object and shoul
used in the plural form, as Khlebnikov does. In my opinion, th
least two feasible keys to elucidating this seemingly hermetic line. T
is to suggest that in this line we encounter a supra-syntactic shift, o
"when the words in a text are all standard words in a syntactic struc

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is grammatically correct, yet the meanings of the words still do not produce
a logical, clear idea" (Janecek 1986, 43). But this particular meaning of the
noun ver by no means casts light on the semantics of the respective line or
the entire poem. According to the commentary provided for the poem
(Khlebnikov 1968, 303), ver can mean "bulrush," although this word is not
recorded in most Russian encyclopedic or etymological dictionaries. How-
ever, this meaning can be accepted as plausible, since the noun ver may be
viewed as an apocopic form of the archaic Russian noun vern,27 meaning
"tree branch," "stalk," "stem" or "offshoot" (Dal' 181). As Khlebnikov
himself indicated, words beginning with the Russian "v" symbolize "mo-
tion around a fixed point (the path is constant in length, the angle changes
and increases)" as in volosy [hair], vetki [branches] (1987, 317). Interest-
ingly, in his 1919 essay "Artists of the World!" Khlebnikov suggested that
the Russian letter "B" [v] be designated as representing the color green in a
proposed universal dictionary for all mankind (367). Therefore, this particu-
lar meaning of the word seems to fit well within the poem's semantics.
The phrase o lebedivo is apparently derived from the nouns lebed' [swan]
and divo [miracle]. The poem's final word encompasses multiple connota-
tions, such as the notion of illumination, dawn, or heavenly reflection,
which can be recognized in the word's phonic properties: ozari - zaria,
zarevo, etc. As the letter "z" (used in every odd-numbered line) renders
the color gold in Khlebnikov's system of phonetic associations (1987, 305),
the final ozari strengthens the poem's visual impression by emphasizing the
bright, illuminating glow.
Sergei Sigei, obviously familiar with Khlebnikov's works on zaum, at-
tempted to render the poem as closely as possible by means of pictography.
The structure of Sigei's work reflects that of Khlebnikov's discourse: each
poetic line relates to an individual row of figures, and pictures follow each
other in an order corresponding to the continuity of the poetic images.
Sigei's alignment of the page resembles that of Khlebnikov, although the
first two poetic lines are graphically united in the initial sequence of picto-
graphs, which makes Sigei's "picto-poem" one line shorter than the proto-
type. And yet such treatment of the original is justified by the grammar and
semantics of the phrase Krylyshkuia zolotopis'mom / Tonchaishikh zhil.
The reader of Sigei's "picto-poem" is supposed to progress in a linear,
horizontal direction from one line to another, as if reading a conventional
poetic text. But the task of correlating the initial text with its pictorial
variant seems to be more challenging, especially when dealing with picto-
grams standing for Khlebnikov's zaum words. Although highly stylized, the
figures of wings, grasshopper and swan are still recognizable and relatively
unambiguous. Provided that the reader is familiar with the poetic text, the
verb ulozhil with the attached complement [put inside his belly] and the
adverb mnogo [a lot of] can be associated with the arrows or vectors of

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direction and the mathematical symbols <<. The pictorial image corre-
sponding to the very last line 0 ozari! [Oh illuminate!] seems to be indis-
tinct. However, on closer examination one can possibly discern some simi-
larity between the thin lines inside the cloud-shaped image and filaments in
an electric bulb. The pictograms corresponding to zaum words that are
meant to convey linguistically ambiguous information obviously present
difficulties for decoding, as they do not signify anything precise and thus
represent an extreme form of polysemy. In this respect, they are similar to
abstract notions, which cannot be expressed accurately by pictographic
signs, a feature which considerably limits the communicative and expres-
sive potential of pictographic writing and further complicates the interpre-
tive process.28 Inasmuch as Sigei deals with transrational language, figures
in the fourth line of the "picto-poem" can hardly suggest any familiar
phenomenon, since they express the author's individual perception of the
zaum words. Since, as Ernst Gombrich (297-98) insists, there is no such
thing as an innocent eye, it is likely that other recipients of the same verbal
information will create different associations in their mind's eye, and a
consensus on this matter is largely unattainable.
Another problem faced by Sigei is the impossibility of completely render-
ing the phonic aspect of the poem. According to Khlebnikov (1972, 187),

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for example, the sound repetition of the letters k, 1, r and u is supposed to

create a five-sided honeycomb structure within the poem.
Sigei's transposition of a challenging text that incorporates onomato-
poeic and zaum words is an interesting experiment which as much as any-
thing attests to the possibility of successfully replacing linguistic signs with
pictorial ones. It would be relevant to note that Khlebnikov himself nur-
tured the idea of creating a universal alphabet of graphic signs. In his essay
"Artists of the World!" the poet proposed to commission graphic artists to
take on "the task of creating an alphabet of concepts" with graphic symbols
providing "for the basic units of the mental process" inherent in the mean-
ing of individual sounds (1987, 365). To a certain extent, Sigei's "picto-
poem" can be viewed as a response to Khlebnikov's aspiration.
Valeri Scherstjanoi, another visual poet involved with non-verbal poetic
forms, creates specific graphic constituents called "scribentisms" to replace
conventional linguistic signs. His "scribentisms" function like notes in a stan-
dard musical notation, with special panels referred to as music sheets. Most
of Scherstjanoi's visual compositions are intended for simultaneous audio
and visual performance; at his performances the audience is provided with
audio-listening devices to listen to the sound track for each piece. Successive
"scribentisms" are graphically modelled on musical notation practices, and
duplicate the traditional ingress and horizontal linear reading of such works.
In most cases, due to the significant distortion of the initial iconic symbols,
installations of accumulated and overlapped "scribentisms" are unable to
communicate the message originally transmitted by their prototypes. How-
ever, this does not mean that they are deprived of any communicative func-
tion. Their interpretability may vary from piece to piece, ranging from works
with loose or arbitrary semantics to those with a meaning determined within
a framework of graphically or pictorially established parameters.
In the composition "Two on the Waves of Love" (1995, n.p.) (fig. 13), the
peripeteia of love is narrated by means of portmanteau "scribentisms" de-
rived from the contamination of a stylized figure "2" and the common
graphic symbol of a wave. The narrative monotony of the first four double
lines, each consisting of sequences of reversing pictorial mirrors (seman-
tically and graphically paired), which obviously symbolize an untroubled
harmonious relationship, are in sharp contrast to the dynamic linear rhythm
of the culminating fifth line. The latter suggests a conflict, followed by a crisis
in the relationship and the dramatic denouement of breaking up. The last
two images of the visual row, two hearts, are separated by distance in accor-
dance with the linear perspective. The fact that the "abandoned" heart is
composed of two question marks strengthens the finale's dramatic effect.
Scherstjanoi's non-verbal narration, realized through a series of pictorial
situations, is discernible and comprehensible, although the only access to the
meaning is the work's material base, which lacks a text. The work's non-

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Fig. 13
2 2
7W~ n%~
Fig. 14
??^V ^ ^" ^Y
,vv,, ?z -
~ Z
rv,.T
verbal nature does not prevent the reader from developing an accurate
interpretation of the events schematically outlined. The title assists in the
interpretative process. However, because the discourse is communicated
through polysemantic "scribentisms," it is up to the reader to improvise and
construct a general story line using details which could be stimulated by the
work's available sonic component. On the accompanying audiotapes, the
"scribentisms" are supported by rustles, clamors and other sonic nuances.
"Two on the Waves of Love" has a relatively narrow spectrum of hypo-
thetical meanings within the established semantic framework. Another
work by Scherstjanoi, "We" (fig. 14), represents the fusion of the two
semantic logograms that identify male and female genders. It possesses a
wide range of possible denotations, from an erotic one to a philosophical
concept of the complementary principles of masculinity and femininity
which maintain universal harmony. In contrast to "Two on the Waves of
Love," it does not utilize a notational pattern as a structural principle of
material organization.
Scherstjanoi, like other visual practitioners, challenges the traditional
function of the linguistic sign as a primary message transmitter by totally
eliminating it and substituting pictorial signs and indices. As language is a
sign system, it can be replaced by other sign systems (Williamson 89), "for

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what describes in some systems may depict in others" (Goodman 132).

Thus, the idea of system compatibility, which is not novel, seems to be fully
applicable to visual poetry. However, the complete or partial replacement
of linguistic signs by other forms of communication alters the reader's
perception.
The act of reading a text is a process of accomplishing structured acts of
comprehension according to the rules and conventions established for the
language. The success of this act "depends on the extent to which this text
can activate the individual reader's faculties of perceiving and processing"
(Iser 107). Although the text does not exercise total control over the act of
reading, it does provide a clear guide for processing by readers familiar
with that particular language.
In contrast to the linear and temporal reading of the text, visual percep-
tion employs three different sensory variables: "the variation of marks and
the two dimensions of the plane" (Bertin 3). Unlike a linguistic system, a
visual system communicates the "relationships among its three variables"
(3), as well as relationships among other components, such as size, value,
texture, color, orientation, and shape (7). Not only do linear and spatial
systems communicate information in different ways, but the communica-
tive means employed by a visual system are more elaborate and complex in
terms of resources, even if the particular work does not resort to all existing
possibilities. For instance, in most literatures, because of technological
limitations, black-and-white visual compositions outnumber colored ones.
Human observation of art typically starts with noticing the most promi-
nent structural feature or eye-catching colors and then progresses from
"the perceptually simplest conception to patterns of increasing complexity"
(Arnheim 6). It is important for the viewer, as Arnheim suggests, to grasp
the picture completely before identifying individual elements, since the
whole makes a general statement that must not be lost. Only after accom-
plishing this is the viewer, guided by the work's structure, able to attempt
"to recognize the principal features and explore their dominion over depen-
dant details" (Arnheim 8). However, some iconic expressions, such as
various stylizations or super-signs,29 are typically recognized not "because
of their similarity to a content-model" but due "to their similarity to an
expression-type which is not strictly compulsory and permits many free
variants" (Eco 238). This means that the perception of representational
works of art depends on conventions which standardize the way a certain
idea is to be represented, and yet the principles of representation are not
strictly determined and may vary considerably. The same principle is appli-
cable to the sequence of scanning pictorial information, which reflects the
established conventions. In non-representational or abstract works very
few elements (if any) are conventionalized, which leaves even more space

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for a free subjective way of approaching and comprehending the artistic

piece.
Thus, visual perception is more inventive and imaginative than the conven-
tional text reading. As Arnheim (5) insists, "[a]ll perceiving is also thinking,
all reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also invention." The
combinative variability of the visual means utilized in the composition allows
considerably more room for interpretation and thus for a more dynamic
interaction between the visual poem and the reader. However, a closer look
at the use of non-verbal material within the framework of the visual poem
permits us to notice an interesting regularity. Non-verbal elements (graph-
ics, pictograms, vectors, indices, and other non-verbal signs), joined in di-
verse ways to form meaningful units, are not only semantically related to
verbal ones, provided that the work has a verbal component, but are also
modelled upon the conventions of textual communication. The previously
discussed Nikonova poem "Slova" can serve as an example. Some pictorial
elements, like pictograms, may correspond to individual sentences, as in
case of Sigei's picto-rendering of Khlebnikov's poem "Krylyshkuia zolo-
topis'mom," but commonly the semantics of the visual elements are limited.
In the verbal components' absence, the non-verbal elements assume the full
responsibility for conveying semantic meaning, which may be somewhat
vague and obscure as in Sigei's "Comma poem," but may also be highly
comprehensible as in Scherstjanoi's "Two on the Waves of Love."
Visual poetry, unlike non-representational art, has a second semiotic
function, an informational one: to articulate a message. However, its appli-
cation may be considerably limited as compared to conventional literary
discourse. Although the communication scheme of visual poetry "serves
less an understanding of meaning than an understanding of arrangements"
(Bense 73), it would be wrong to reduce such poetry exclusively to the
level of aesthetic communication. The informational function of visual
poetry is realized either on the verbal level or through motivated visual
associations, or both. This foreordains its perception as a literary rather
than an artistic work solely "intended to be seen like painting" (Solt 7).
Therefore, the perceptual pattern utilized by the reader of non-verbal
visual poetry is reminiscent of that used in the act of reading texts rather
than in perceiving art.
The mechanism of perceiving visual poetry incorporates elements of
both - the rigid determinant sequence of arrangement, characteristic of
conventional text reading, and the arbitrariness of art observation. The
visual poem's semantic information is decoded in a manner similar to con-
ventional reading techniques, although the conventional linear left-to-right
sequence is not necessarily imposed upon the reader. Some works are quite
flexible regarding the point of ingress or the reading direction. In both

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verbal (especially with reduced language) and non-verbal visual composi-

tions, the sequence of logical and associative relations to be decoded con-
ceptually is predominantly signalled by the structure. By rejecting the old
grammatical-syntactical patterns, visual poetry has been developing new
communication models, more motivated and structurally oriented (Bense
73) and yet semantically impregnated. These new communication patterns
can be synthesized by means of conventional verbal elements (extended or
reduced), or used independently, as in non-verbal poems. Attempting to
understand the visual poem as a whole before identifying its details, which
is imperative for fine art appreciation, in most cases turns out to be abor-
tive, as the work's semantics are perceived through comprehending the
individual components and their juxtaposition. In this sense, visual poetry
again demonstrates its strong affiliation with the conventional text, where
meaning cannot be fully understood by merely casting a glance instead of
thorough reading.
Nonetheless, the question as to whether visual poetry is a full-fledged
literary form remains debatable. With the increasing number of works
identified as non-verbal visual poems, there is a need to appreciate the
uniqueness of this form without attempting to pigeonhole it exclusively in
either the literary or visual art domain.
NOTES
The author would like to express gratitude to Ruth and Marvin Sackner, owners of The R
and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, as well as Alex Ocheretyansky
editor of the journal Chernovik, for their support, hospitality, access to the materials us
this paper and permission for publication. The next round of thanks is extended to the a
of the visual works who granted permission for reproduction. These authors include A
Alchuk, Dmitry Bulatov, Valeri Scherstjanoi, Sergei Sigov, and Anna Tarshis. The auth
would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Social Science and Hum
ties Research Council grant for research in the summer of 2002.
1 An overview of early Eastern European visual writing is provided in Nazarenko and
Soroka.
2 Simeon Polotsky was not the first Russian poet interested in carmina curiosa. Individual
poems were produced by the sixteenth-century monk Evstraty, responsible for creating
the carmina serpentina in Russian Church Slavonic, and by the monk German (d. 1682),
who authored fourteen acrostic songs earlier or approximately at the same time when
Polotsky explored the possibility of the genre. Other authors of syllabic prosody acrostics
include I. A. Khvorostinin (d. 1625), and the clerk Savvaty, whose poems were written
most likely before 1652. See Panchenko 37-40, 96, 97-103; Drage 16, 98.
3 Simeon Polotsky attended Kiev Mohyla Collegium which was founded in 1632 and granted
the full privileges of an academy in 1694. In this school, courses on poetics provided a close
study of the carmina curiosa almost as detailed as the treatment of epic, drama and lyric. It
is important that Kievan manuals of poetics did not copy those written by Western authors.
Kievan scholars illustrated their theoretical statements with visual poems of their own and

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wherever possible gave Ukrainian variants of acrostics, labyrinths, palindromes, numeri-

cal, alphabetical, coordinated and other poems which reflected international traditions of
visual writing. This scholarly philological program undoubtedly stimulated the remarkable
efflorescence of Eastern European Baroque literature, and visual poetry in particular. See
Syvokin 95; Soroka 66.
4 Polotsky's sole published book was Psalter, a collection of metrical psalms. Both his
major manuscripts Vertograd mnogotsvetnyi and Rifmologion, which contain quite a
number of poems with a strong visual appeal, lay unpublished for three centuries.
5 Earlier, Ivan Rozanov had recognized Medvedev and Istomin as Polotsky's successors,
though they did not surpass him in creativity. See Rozanov 59.
6 Russian scholar A. N. Robinson, while recognizing that Polotsky had a small but notable
school, still contends that his legacy did not receive the attention it deserved from the
following generations of Russian men of letters. According to Robinson, they cared more
for the prolific creative legacy of the Archpriest Avvakum, the leader of the Old Believ-
ers' opposition to the innovations in Church traditions that were attempted in the second
part of the seventeenth century by the Russian Patriarch Nikon, and none of them
mentioned Simeon Polotsky (13, 43, 45).
7 Several visual poems of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are reported in the
following sources: Adrianova-Peretts; Berkov; Biriukov; Chizhevskii; Drage; Vasilev. It
should be noted that there are no figured poems by Mikhail Lomonosov, the most
eminent Russian poet of the eighteenth century.
8 Biriukov (164-65) presents pattern poems by I. Rukavishnikov, A. Apukhtin and Erl.
Martov.
9 Futurists and Constructivists exemplified different approaches to satisfying this ambition.
As Edward Mozejko (103) suggests, "LEF's writers [Left Front of Arts united various left-
leaning artists and writers who supported Bolshevik revolutionary ideals - TN] strove to
build out of real events a verbal work of art, which would be almost tangible. In doing so,
they pushed the reification of literature to the maximum by promoting the idea of art as
object. Literary Constructivists, in trying to achieve precision of description and maximum
content in the smallest possible unit of word, proposed using a variety of means: geometri-
cal figures, numbers, new diacritical signs and new printing techniques."
10 Avant-gardist experimentations were noted in: Barron and Tuchman; Biriukov; Compton
1978, 1992; Elliott; Janecek 1984; Mozejko; Perloff; White.
11 Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchenykh, and Aleksandr Tufanov developed the founda-
tions of zaum. Boris Kushner analyzed language sound structures. El Lissitzky exten-
sively commented on typography and new printing techniques. Kornely Zelinsky, Ilia-
Karl Selvinsky, and Aleksei Chicherin in their endeavour to load the smallest unit of the
language with the maximum meaning analyzed a variety of non-verbal means of poetic
expression. See Kuzminskii, lanechek, Ocheretianskii.
12 In 1919, Roman Jakobson, who in fact never called himself a Formalist, authored the
article "Futurism," dedicated to Futurist painting.
13 Roman Jakobson's suggestion that the material substance of language is to be "perceived
by itself" and not as "a transparent medium merely bearing meaning" (Todorov 271)
found its further elaboration and justification in Jacques Derrida's notion of a written
word as an object in its own right (1982). Later, in the 1930s in Prague, Roman Jakobson,
Petr Bogatyrev and Jan Mukarovsky extended their semiotic approach, which was ini-
tially applied to language, to other domains of human activity, including the visual arts
(see Mukafovsky "Art as Semiotic Fact," "The Essence of the Visual Arts"; Petr
Bogatyrev, "Costume as Sign," in Matejka and Titunik.
14 In my opinion, the term "non-verbal" poetry clearly represents the idea of a literary
product composed without the use of words, analogous with "non-verbal communica-

151.15.162.189 on Sun, 03 Dec 2023 11:59:27 +00:00
tion." The term "nondiscursive" poetry has a wider application, as it refers to visual
poetry in general. See Bohn 1986, 5.
15 Rea (Ry) Nikonova is the pen-name of Anna Tarshis. She emigrated from Russia in 1988
and presently resides in Germany.
16 Sergei Sigei is the pen-name of Sergei Sigov. He emigrated from Russia together with his
wife Anna Tarshis and presently resides in Germany.
17 Boris Konstriktor is a pen-name of the St. Petersburg poet and artist Boris Akselrod.
18 According to Nikonova, the Moscow school of Conceptualism, founded in the 1970s and
represented by Andrei Monastyrsky, Dmitry Prigov, Ilia Kabakov and others, was the
third appearance of conceptualism in Russia following Aleksei Chicherin's experimenta-
tion and the Sverdlovsk Uktus School (Nikonova-Tarshis 222).
19 It is not quite clear what part of the Uktus School archive is still available in Russia after
the immigration of Nikonova and Sigei to Germany. In the West the most representative
collection of the Uktus School legacy, including the Transponans journal, is preserved in
The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry in Miami Beach,
Florida.
20 Vilen Barsky emigrated to Germany in 1981.
21 Valeri Scherstjanoi presently lives in Germany.
22 Sergei Biriukov presently lives in Germany.
23 Both Nikonova and Sigei attach great significance to the performance of visual poetry. In
their opinion, visual poetry is inseparable from action or manipulation of the material and
the work itself. See Sigei 1990a, 22-32. This approach totally excludes from the body of
visual poetry the creations of many visualists who are not keen on performance.
24 Khlebnikov's poem was published for the first time in the 1912 Cubo-Futurist manifesto
A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. In 1914, another variant of the same poem appeared in
the third collection of Khlebnikov's works published by David Burliuk, who dated the
poem 1906-1908 (Khlebnikov 1968, 303). However, according to the editors of volume,
many poems dated by Burliuk as created in 1906-08 were in fact written later (301).
25 See Markov; Grigoriev; Weststeijn; Duganov; Janecek 1996.
26 Fasmer (2: 97) lists zinzivei or zinziver (dzindziver) as the name of the mallow (Malva
rotundifolia or Malva silvestris). The word dzindziver has the same meaning in Ukrai-
nian, although it is currently out of use.
27 Another common Slavic word with a similar root, verba [pussy-willow], in both Lithua-
nian (virbas) and Latvian (virbs) means a "twig," "stick" or "stem." The primary mean-
ing of the word, most likely borrowed from Greek, was "any cane that is flexible"
(Fasmer 1: 293; Shanskii 54).
28 According to Senner (5), pictographs, which gradually assume additional abstract no-
tions, become ideograms of ideas.
29 For more detailed information on stylizations and super-signs as opposed to inventions,
see Eco 239.
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Nazarenko ReThinkingValueLinguistic 2003

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Re-Thinking the Value of the Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Sign: Russian Visual Poetry

without Verbal Components

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3219979

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Tatiana Nazarenko, University of Manitoba

Alongside the huge corpus of traditional poetry there exists a substantial

SEEJ, Vol. 47, No. 3 (2003): p. 393-p. 421 393

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tions of writers.7 However, the isolated compositions scattered throughout

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sentatives. In addition to numerous visual compositions using truly innova-

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significantly evolved. Additionally, technological capacities stimulate virtu-

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According to the author, the manner of reading reflects the process of

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cherin's principle of "wordless" poetry. In fact, it can be viewed as a logical

Needless to say, Nikonova's critical inquiry into platform diversification

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Ego-Futurist Vasilisk Gnedov. It was entitled "Poema kontsa [The Poem

Chukovsky's negative criticism was apparently provoked by Gnedov's

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tions as vacuum poetry and may not be familiar with Chicherin'

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??? ??? ??? ???

The composition's ending with a question m

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instance of vacuum poetry. The work is organized on a formal analogy with

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tant to reading and decoding, as well as being a vacuum poem. Being

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seemingly deprived of any meaningful verbal discourse and yet utilizes

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Krylyshkuia zolotopis'mom Winging by writing in gold

As we see, the text of the short poem incorporates a few zaum

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for example, the sound repetition of the letters k, 1, r and u is supposed to

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what describes in some systems may depict in others" (Goodman 132).

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for a free subjective way of approaching and comprehending the artistic

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verbal (especially with reduced language) and non-verbal visual composi-

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wherever possible gave Ukrainian variants of acrostics, labyrinths, palindromes, numeri-

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Adrianova-Peretts, V. P., ed. Russkaia sillabicheskaia poeziia XVII-XVIII vv. Leningrad:

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Goodman, Nelson. Language of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis, IN:

Mitchell, W. J. T. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.

Rozanov, Iv. N. "Russkoe knizhnoe stikhotvorstvo ot nachala pismennosti do Lomonosova."

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